Multiple station machinery for forming and inserting dynamoelectric field windings into a stator core are well known in the art. Patents which are representative of this type of apparatus are U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,579,818; 3,691,606; 3,742,596; and 4,106,185. In those patents apparatus is described wherein a transfer tool is moved between stations where various operations take place. For example, in the '818 patent and the '596 patent, insulating wedges are formed at one station and inserted into the wedge guide slots of a transfer tool. The tool is then moved to a second station whereupon dynamoelectric field windings are formed either directly on the transfer tool, as in the '818 patent, or multiple turns are formed into coils initially and then inserted into the slots of the transfer tool, as in the '596 patent.
The winding techniques of the prior art are numerous. Usually the individual turns of wire, as they are formed into a winding or coil, are maintained in tension such as by wrapping them around a plurality of pins as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,828,830. U.S. Pat. No. 3,874,424 forms the winding on a template which carries the windings into the transfer tool slots. The windings are then stripped from the template and the template withdrawn from the transfer tool.
With the windings in place on the transfer tool, the transfer tool is then moved to an insertion station whereupon an empty stator core is placed in position on the transfer tool and the windings are stripped from the transfer tool and pushed into the slots of the stator core, along with the wedges. Patents representative of apparatus for stripping windings from a transfer tool and inserting them and wedges simultaneously into the slots of stator cores are U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,324,526; 3,447,225; 3,815,206; and 3,968,556. The wound stator core is then removed from the transfer tool and the transfer tool repeats its cycle through the work stations. A more recent development in this field is the so-called "push winding" method for forming dynamoelectric machine field windings. Representative of this method are commonly owned U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,903,933; 3,985,163; 3,985,164; and 4,033,385. The common feature of the inventions in those patents is that the magnet wire is pushed rather than pulled from the end of a moving or rotating nozzle. The nozzles are appropriately oriented and their path of movement is selected such that gravity coupled with the momentum of the wire being pushed from the nozzle and any deflecting or constraining surface placed in the wire's path will control where the wire falls and the shape which it takes. In the '163 patent concentric circular windings or coils are formed within the slots between blades of a first transfer tool. These prewound coils are subsequently transferred to a second transfer tool which carries wedges between wedge guide blades. The coils are then stripped from the second tool and inserted into the slots of a stator along with the wedges by means well known in the art. It would be advantageous not to have to form the windings on one transfer tool and transfer the windings onto a second, wedge carrying transfer tool from which they are inserted into a stator core. Transfer tools of the prior art which are designed to hold and guide wedges are not suited for winding using the push winding method.